


Body Armor

by extremelyperturbed



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1570088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extremelyperturbed/pseuds/extremelyperturbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Freddie gives Frederick a pep talk before he's about to testify.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Body Armor

“There! You look properly stylish,” said Freddie as she smoothed the front of Chilton‘s suit. It was his day to testify at the trial of Hannibal Lecter. She was there, both to help make him presentable and to calm his nerves. 

Chilton hesitated before turning to the full-length mirror. He sighed, turned and after a long appraisal of his appraisal, said, “I look like shit.”

“Come on, Chilton.”

“You dressed me up quite nicely,” said Chilton because he didn’t want to piss off one of the few people who didn’t believe he was the Ripper before he had been cleared. And she had done her best, considering his condition. “But I look like one of those bodies in a casket they have for open viewing.”

“Pshaw!” said Freddie as she put on her wide brimmed hat that wouldn’t be out of place on Scarlett O’Hara. She promptly put a dark brown safari hat on his head with a darker brown band on his head. “There! That completes the outfit.”

“I didn’t know you were going to be a witness.”

She pouted. “I’m not. They think that I lack credibility. Even though I‘m the one who did my research and knew you couldn‘t have been the killer.” She decided not to tell him that was partly because her sources had told her that he had been a crappy surgeon during medical school.

Chilton decided not to raise her disastrous performance at a previous trial for why she had been nixed from the prosecutor‘s witness list. Instead, he gripped the head of his cane tightly. “With my luck, I’ll be on the stand and he’ll kill me right in the middle of my testimony.” After all, he had heard about how the bailiff and the judge for Will Graham’s trial had been horribly killed then transformed into the murderers’ idea of art. The courtroom was no guarantee of safety.

Freddie sighed. “I’m going to be the last person to encourage belief in the ability of the FBI to protect you but I think if he’s going to use his one and only chance to attack someone, it’s going to be Will Graham he attacks, not you.”

“Oh, how reassuring,” sighed Chilton.

“How is . . . everything?”

“I use a girdle to help my abdomen hold my guts and I have a residual head ache from time to time. I don’t walk as well as I used to but my brain’s in one piece.”

“Good, I’m glad.”

“I heard that he’d been planning on making you a meal.”

“Will managed to prevent me from walking straight into Hannibal’s trap.” As much as it irked her, she had to give credit to him for keeping her from becoming one of Hannibal’s dishes. “Since I can’t testify, I will do a write-up of the trial, emphasizing all the horrible things he’s done to his many victims. I‘ll be sure to emphasize how wrongly you were accused of his crimes.”

“If they give him the death penalty, I’m going to demand a front row seat. Even if it’s the disappointing sight of him being injected with a drug cocktail and sleeping his way into death. If I had my way, I’d demand they put a stake through his heart so he didn’t come back.”

“I can’t see why they wouldn’t. I mean let you watch, not treat him like a vampire,” said Freddie. “Do me a favor.”

“What?”

“I want you to stride in there with all the confidence you can muster, look that asshole in the eye and show him that you are a survivor who doesn‘t fear him.”

“I’ll try.”

The End

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really expect a trial for Hannibal. When the evidence is that overwhelming, a lot of murderers cop a plea. I think that's why Hannibal ends up incarcerated and not on Death Row waiting for lethal injection.
> 
> Even if it never becomes a ship, I'd be happy if the show Friendshipped them. It would add nuance & humor to the show.


End file.
